First take: Eulogy was Obama at his best

While delivering the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, South Carolina, President Obama sang 'Amazing Grace.'
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President Obama sings "Amazing Grace" during services honoring the life of Rev. Clementa Pinckney Friday at the College of Charleston TD Arena in Charleston, S.C.. Pinckney was one of the nine people killed in the shooting at Emanuel AME Church last week in Charleston.(Photo: David Goldman, AP)

The Rev. Clementa Pinckney was undoubtedly a monumental figure in Charleston, S.C., where he was pastor of its most historic black church and an influential state senator. But until he was gunned down in his church last week last week along with eight other worshipers, he was largely unknown outside South Carolina.

He was known to President Obama.

And for the rest of American history, he may be remembered as much for Obama's electrifying eulogy than for his career in public service and ministry.

After extolling the gentle perseverance of Pinckney's life, Obama boiled it down to what he said were the only five words that matter: "He was a good man."

But then, in a half-hour speech a block from the "Mother" Emanuel A.M.E. Church where Pinckney was killed, Obama deftly turned a remembrance of Pinckney into a broader meditation on the church, race relations, violence and the American character. And he did it using a vocabulary we've rarely heard from him over the years — a vocabulary of faith, perseverance, salvation, prayer.

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People wait in line to enter the funeral service where President Obama will deliver the eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed along with eight others in a mass shooting last week. Win McNamee, Getty Images

Tamaria Nelson, left, of Ridgeland, S.C., a cousin of Clementa Pinckney, stands outside the scene of last week's mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church, while heading to Pinckney's funeral service with family members. David Goldman, AP

"Oh, but God's grace works in mysterious ways," Obama said, the crowd coming to its feet. "God has different ideas. He didn't know he was being used by God."

Instead of dividing people, the killer's actions brought about a "thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life," Obama said. "Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Rev. Pinckney so well understood: The power of God's grace."

Obama didn't avoid the lightning-rod issues that have erupted from the mass murder: the Confederate flag, racism, guns.

And then he added to that list issues of criminal justice reform, police-community relations, employment discrimination, voting rights.

He defied the cliched call for a "conversation" about race in America. "We talk a lot about race," he said. "There's no shortcut. We don't need more talk."

Purple-robed African Methodist Episcopal bishops and ministers sat behind him, but the audience also visibly included Catholic and Orthodox priests, Jewish rabbis and undoubtedly members of other religious traditions.

There's no denying that the speech's power came in part from those who heard it. In the best African-American Christian tradition, Obama and his audience fed off each other in call-and-response fashion. Someone transported into the present from 1968 might have mistaken him more for a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr. than a successor to Lyndon Johnson.

CLOSE

Since the events in Charleston, South Carolina, race relations in America has been on the minds of much of the Nation. For President Obama it has been a common theme in his speeches for years.
(USA NEWS, USA TODAY)

But you didn't need to come from any faith tradition to see that something transformative was happening in the College of Charleston TD Arena. As he's managed to do few times in his presidency, Obama became a fully integrated, fully actualized civil rights president.

As he one of the most memorable speeches of his presidency reached full crescendo, Obama returned to "Amazing Grace." In full song, he harmonized in a pitch almost as perfect as the speech itself.